I now lay the blame squarely on British Telecom! After all, if the local exchange hadn't suddenly announced they were going digital, whatever that means, Denis might not have been tempted to dash out and renew all our phones.
But I'm afraid that's Denis all over. I realised soon after I married him that Denis has this one glaring hang-up. If anyone shows him a new gadget, he has at the very least to buy one for himself - and usually tries to go one better.
For instance, the day the man next door acquired a second-hand R-registration car, Denis traded in his own "P" for something beginning with an "W", merely for the joy of smiling smugly over the fence as he drove off to work the following morning. And within hours of the family across the road installing a new front door, Denis came struggling home with ours, a prestigious mahogany thing with Dickensian bowed windows.
So when one of his colleagues at work bought himself an answering machine, Denis couldn't resist obtaining not only the top-of-the-range model but a collection of push-button phones as well.
Personally I was quite content with the old-fashioned rotary phones, in fact I prefer them because I can see what I'm dialling. I find these push-button things so fiddly that I can't guarantee to make a call without my reading glasses!
Of course, when I tactfully raised the subject of extravagance, Denis quickly put me straight.
"It's MY money, love, not yours. And anyway, my pal Simon can afford it, and his salary's only a fraction of what I'm earning!"
The first I knew about the new phones was when I came home from shopping one Saturday to find our old instruments dumped in the hall, having been replaced by an array of these lightweight coloured things.
The new red phone in the kitchen looked like more a fire extinguisher! There was a yellow one upstairs in our room, trying to pretend it was a bedside banana. I found cordless receivers in the loo and the bathroom, while a ridiculously complex answering-machine occupied pride of place in the living room, ensuring that no visitor could fail to be suitably envious.
"That'll make them sit up and take notice!" Denis said with glowing satisfaction.
I pointed out that visitors, neighbours and passers-by alike would be more impressed if Denis got down to some work in the garden. The lawn looked as though it hadn't been trimmed since the last Bob-a-job Week.
My careless jibe evidently caused deep injuries to Denis's self-esteem, because when I came home from church on the Sunday he was outside demonstrating to neighbours a new motorised lawn-tractor he'd just acquired from the Garden Centre. There he was, riding it to and fro on the front lawn like an overgrown six-old-year on a birthday pedal car.
He was at it again after lunch, trimming the grass for the third time, and promising to mow neighbours' lawns too, just to show how easy it was if you could afford the right equipment.
Meanwhile I was trying to phone my sister. First I approached the bewildering gadget in the living room, but it kept flashing lights at me like a computer, mocking my failure to come to terms with its technology, and warning me to keep my hands off things I didn't understand. Denis was forever teasing me about this so-called flaw in my character, hinting that I
couldn't even do up a bra without having the manufacturer's instructions in front of me.
"Denis," I yelled through the front window. "Come and show me how to use this ridiculous phone!" But he was over the road with a crowd of onlookers, and couldn't hear me above the drone of his wretched new toy. Realising it would be quieter to phone from the rear of the house, I went upstairs to the bedroom and picked up the banana.
At first I couldn't understand why, as I put the silly thing to my ear, it had already dialled out for me and was ringing at the other end. Odd! I thought. How does it know whose number I wanted?
Then a voice answered, a soft, simpering voice that certainly wasn't my sister.
"Hallo?" she purred. But who was she? I was on the point of asking when sudden doubts got in the way.
"Hallo?" she repeated. "Is that you?"
Then I remembered. She sounded exactly like the new receptionist at Denis's office - Sylvia something. But why should she be on the line, and on a Sunday too? I mumbled vague apologies and put the phone down.
I was about to try my sister again when I felt a twinge of suspicion. I examined the banana more closely and saw on it a small button marked REDIAL. To prove my theory, I carefully pressed it again and listened.
"Hallo?" said the same kittenish voice. "Who is this?"
I didn't want to give my name, not then. But certainly I wanted to confirm who SHE was, and to know why Denis had been phoning her from our bedroom.
That's when I had this wicked flash of inspiration.
"Good afternoon!" I began in a posh voice. "Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, but I wonder if you could spare two minutes of your valuable time? We're conducting a survey for BBC television - would you mind answering a few questions?"
"Television?" she breathed, as though her big break to stardom were imminent.
"First," I went on. "Do you watch any romantic films on TV?"
Oh, yes. She liked romantic films!
"And do you like films about married couples, courting lovers, or maybe illicit relationships?"
Here she needed further prompting.
"Let me put it this way - have you ever had an affair with a married man?"
"Will this be going on television?" she cooed.
"That's up to you. If you felt you'd like to participate in our survey, we'll send you free tickets. You needn't be on camera if you'd rather not, but if you're currently having a relationship with a married man we'd be most interested to hear more ..."
"Ooh!" Her voice softened to a whisper. "Well ... actually I am going out with someone from work ..."
"Really? How thrilling for you. Would you care to describe this man?"
She confided that he was "ever so nice!"
I was beginning to lose my patience.
"How wonderful!" I exclaimed. "And you see him at work every day?"
"Yes, at Fosters. I'm the receptionist there. It's ever so nice."
"I bet it is! So, you do admit you're having an affair?"
There was a pause and a man's voice intervened. It was Denis. I dropped the phone at once and crept to the top of the stairs.
"Survey, what survey?" I heard him say down in the hall. "Tickets? Sylvia, why are you phoning here? I thought I made it clear ..."
He broke off, lowering his voice as he took the portable phone out into the garden.
But I'd already heard all I needed, proof enough for me! I stormed into the living room and pressed every available button on the complicated big telephone.
"Now listen to me," I yelled into it. "I've had my suspicions about you for some time, and if you think you can damned well fool around like this you've got another think coming! So get off the line, you tramp, and go stuff yourself!"
Denis was pleasant enough for the rest of the day, but on Monday evening he came striding home from work, absolutely livid. He slammed the new front door, and stood there glowering at me.
"What the hell's got into you?" he stormed. "I've been bombarded with complaints all day! Everyone who's tried ringing this house has suffered a tirade of abuse. I didn't believe it at first, so I tried to call you from the office, and a voice, unmistakably yours, tells every caller to get off the line and to stuff himself! What's got into you? Have you gone mad?"
I stood there, confused and incoherent as I tried to explain. Denis remained stony-faced.
"Sylvia, my secretary," he went on calmly, "is currently going out with a chap from work - the same Simon, as it happens, who gave me that yellow phone. And, yes, Sylvia and I were hatching a secret, but it involved nothing more sinister than two theatre tickets she was asked to get as a surprise for your birthday next week. But may I say, after today's charade I've totally gone off the idea!"
It seemed the yellow phone wasn't the only Banana in the house!
Before we went to bed that night, I allowed Denis to show me precisely how each new phone worked, and under his guidance I recorded a more welcoming message on the answering machine.
I vowed though that if ever I chose to make secret calls, I'd do them from a phone that didn't have a redial button, and I'd certainly use one that looked less like a banana-skin!
THE END
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